Holiday Spending Doesn't Equal Holiday Cheer

‘Tis the season to spend money, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la. As we celebrate Christmas,
Hannukah or Kwanza, extravagance seems to be required. Our mailboxes bulge with catalogs,
mall retailers advertise with abandon, and grocery aisles are crammed with displays
of holiday goodies. We succumb, buying everything from new curtains to Santa statuettes,
along with sugar, heavy cream and butter for calorie laden feasts. Yet in the end
we feel we somehow fell short of expectations, and when the bills arrive in January,
we gasp at the sum of our expenditures